Organization Spotlight ~ Vital Voices

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“A woman with a voice is by definition a strong woman.”   – Melinda French Gates

We are all about using our voices for good over here at The Conscious Perspective and so are former First Lady Hilary Rodham Clinton and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright who established the Vital Voices Democracy Initiative in 1997.  This initiative was established after the United Nations Fourth World Conference on women, which was intended to “promote the advancement of women as a U.S. foreign policy goal”, took place.

Through the Vital Voices Democracy Initiative, the United States Government and several other global organizations and governments coordinated conferences bringing together women leaders from all over the world.  The Vital Voices Democracy Initiative was positively received, and eventually led to the creation of the nonprofit non-governmental organization Vital Voices Global Partnership.

At this time Vital Voices is concentrating on issues such as the socio economic, social and political statuses of women.  They seek to do this by “providing skills, networking and other support to women around the world” to achieve various desired outcomes – including increasing political participation by women, and promoting entrepreneurship.

The mission of the organization focuses on investing in women not only in the United States but across the globe.  They identify, train and empower “emerging women leaders and social entrepreneurs” to help them have the ability to contribute to the world in a manner that will benefit all people.  Women are encouraged to become agents of change within their communities.

Vital Voices works to combat human trafficking and other types of violence toward women and girls and they support entrepreneurship by helping women expand their enterprises through “business development, marketing and communication skills helping create employment and provide women with a means to provide for their families.

According to their website, the Vital Voices team, which consists of over 1,000 members, has trained and mentored over “12,000 emerging women leaders” throughout the world including Africa, Asia, Latin American and the Middle East since their work first began in 1997.  Using a “pay it forward” approach, these women leaders have returned home to train and mentor more than 500,000 additional women and girls in their communities.  It is the belief of Vital Voices that the women they are serving are in fact the “Vital Voices of our time”.

To learn more about the Vital Voices community visit them online at vitalvoices.org, like them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter at @VitalVoices and be sure to take a look at their infographic on the Vital Voices model.